Strange Brains for English

Hello, this is AJ. Welcome to the Effortless English Podcast. Today I'm going to talk about our brains. Our brains, that's right. The thing inside of our heads.

This is an important topic. You see, our brains, my brain, your brain, they all have a... certain characteristic. In other words, there are certain ways of learning that are easier and more effective.

And there are certain ways of learning that are more difficult and less effective. This is especially true of memory. There are certain ways of remembering things that your brain likes, that are easy for your brain and therefore more powerful, more effective.

And then there are other ways of trying to remember things which are less effective. Let's talk about something very simple, a very simple idea. Imagine two events or two experiences.

One event happens one day, and it's just normal. So it's you get up, you go to a bus stop, and you meet a very normal person. And they are wearing very normal clothes.

They look normal. Their hair is normal. Everything about them is normal. You ask them their name. Hi, how are you? Oh, what's your name? They have a very normal name.

In the United States, maybe they have a name like John Smith. Totally normal name. And then they say goodbye, and they get on their bus, and they leave, or they walk away.

Now, the next day, you go to the bus stop again. And this time, you meet someone who is very strange. Their hair... is blue they made their hair blue blue color and they are from a different country they're not from your country they are from a different country and they're wearing very strange clothes purple and green clothes their clothes are colored purple and green purple pants and a bright green shirt

And when they talk, they're very energetic and they're very excited about everything. During the conversation, you ask their name and they have a slightly strange name.

Maybe their name is something like Jeremiah Winkerton, which is a strange name in the United States. Jeremiah Winkerton. And you have to ask them again because it's a little strange. They say, excuse me, what is your name?

They say, Jeremiah Winkerton. And then they get on their bus and they go away or they walk away. So now my simple question to you is, one month later, which person will you remember?

Which person are you most likely to remember? Which name are you most likely to remember? You might forget the names. You might forget both names. But in terms of the people, you're probably going to remember the strange person, right?

Jeremiah Winkerton. You'll remember, oh my God, he had purple pants and he had this bright green shirt and he was really excited all the time. He had that strange name.

Whereas the normal guy, John Smith, wearing normal clothes, doing everything normally, talking in a very normal way, he'll be much easier to forget. So this is an obvious example, right? We all understand this.

We all can see this example. Yeah, of course, the strange person is more memorable. Memorable means easy to remember. But see, this is an important point for all kinds of learning.

Because this is how your brain works. Your brain remembers things which are strange and different. It remembers those more easily than things which are normal.

Your brain remembers things which are more emotional better than it remembers things which are less emotional. Interesting. So the question is, how can we use this idea in our own learning and specifically in your English learning?

So I ask this question a lot as a teacher, as an English teacher. How can I use this to help my students remember vocabulary more easily, pronunciation more easily, and just generally improve their English faster, better, and more easily?

Well, what I do with Effortless English is that I try to... focused on things which are memorable, which are a little strange, a little different, and which have more emotion. That's why I use a lot of emotion when I teach.

In my live seminars, my live classes, where there are actually people in a room and I'm teaching to a class, we use a lot of emotion and a lot of energy.

So that's part of the reason we do physical actions. Physical actions also help to make something easier to remember and to learn. But physical actions also increase your energy, which again makes things easier to remember.

And especially it's because we're using a lot of emotion in our classes too. So when I tell strange stories, I'm doing that because it will help you remember more easily. The stories are strange because strange is easier to remember than normal.

See, in the stories, I could tell you a normal story. When I'm using my mini-stories, for example, like in our VIP program, I use a mini-story every month. And the mini-stories really help a lot with grammar especially, but they also teach vocabulary.

Now I could just tell a totally normal story, like a lot of textbooks do, right? Just say, John was a businessman, and he went to his job, and he had a problem at his job, but he solved the problem, and then he went home, and he was happy.

So that's a very normal kind of story. It's not very memorable. Your brain will not remember that a long time. So instead, what I do, I tell more strange stories.

Usually, the characters in the stories are animals or celebrities. Not normal people. Instead, I tell stories about cats and dogs and spiders and fish.

Or I tell stories about crazy, weird celebrities or strange people. And they're often doing strange and different things. Of course, this is more interesting. It's more entertaining to you.

It's more fun. But the reason it's more fun and entertaining is that your brain enjoys strangeness. Your brain enjoys things which are different, unique. And not only does your brain enjoy those things, your brain remembers those things.

So if you listen to a story in the past tense, and the story is strange and different, maybe a little weird, maybe a little funny, maybe emotional... you will actually learn the past tense more easily.

This is the problem in schools. Schools teach the past tense in the most boring way possible. And because it's boring, you don't remember it. So, for example, in school, you learn a lot of irregular verbs.

Right? Eat and the past of eat is what? Ate. Then we have teach, and the past tense of teach is taught. These are irregular. You don't just add ed to the end.

No, the words change. So in school, how do you learn these words? You just try to memorize them. Eat, ate, eat, ate, teach, taught, teach, taught. Eventually, you do memorize some of them, especially the most common ones, like eat and ate.

But a lot of them you forget or it's difficult for you to remember and use them automatically. For example, I know a lot of advanced English learners who still make mistakes with go and went. They forget to say went.

So they'll say yesterday I go or something like that. And they have studied English a long time, but they still make these basic mistakes. Well, it's because they learned in such a boring way, just trying to memorize things. No emotion, no strangeness, nothing funny, nothing memorable.

When you learn these irregular verbs, for example, in a strange, funny story with a lot of repetition, you learn them more deeply. It's easier for your brain to remember them and then use them correctly later.

So this is something that's very important for you. Anytime you're trying to remember, let's say, new vocabulary, try to think of a strange image, a strange picture in your mind that connects to the meaning of the word.

Or a strange sentence that you can use with the word. So if you're trying to remember eight words, The past of eat. For example, it's a simple example, but let's just imagine.

You need to remember this new irregular verb, eight. Well, you could picture yourself eating the number eight. You come back to this big cake that has the shape of the number eight. It looks like the number eight.

And you can imagine in your mind that you're eating it. This big number eight. And then in your notes, you could write down, I ate the number eight. Something like that.

So that's just a quick example. I just thought in my head immediately. But you see, that's easier to remember, right? You have an image. It's a little strange.

You're eating a number. You could make it more strange. You could make that number in your mind a strange color. Maybe it's orange, right? And you could make it even more strange.

Maybe it's orange and there are bugs on it crawling around on that number eight. And then you're eating it and you're crunching on the bugs and it tastes kind of bad.

You see how each time you add more strangeness and a little more emotion, it becomes easier to remember. When you add the bugs, that gives you a little bit of an emotion and it's even more strange. When you add the color orange, that's a little more strange.

You just use your imagination and you can keep adding things if you need to. The point is, the more strange it is, the more different it is, And the more it has some emotion to it, like eating yucky bugs, eating disgusting bugs that might make you feel, ooh, that's a bad, you get a strange emotion, like you don't like that. That's good.

You see? All of those things make this easier to remember. And so you're more likely to remember that the past of eat is ate. Now that's still the old school way of trying to learn vocabulary because you're still just memorizing a single word.

That's not really the best way to do it, but it's better than just looking at the word and repeating it many times. A much better way is to learn that word in a strange story, in a strange situation, in a funny situation.

Or maybe in an emotional situation, such as our mini-stories, something like that. That's the best way, because then you're getting it in a complete story. So you understand how it's used, and you have a whole lot of different details from the story that will help you remember. So you'll remember it much, much faster.

This is why also in school, many times, the most effective teachers are a little strange, a little different. People say I'm a little weird sometimes. Maybe I am. I don't know.

But I do remember that when I was in school, my favorite teachers were always a little bit different, a little strange. They were more emotional, more entertaining, more passionate, more

Sometimes they had a little bit strange methods. And maybe their methods weren't even better. Maybe they weren't more effective, more powerful. But just by being a little strange, I remembered more.

It was more interesting. It was more entertaining. And because of that, I remembered more of their teachings. On the other hand, we all know that most teachers can be quite boring, right?

They're all trying to be normal. So they do the exact same thing. They stand in front of the room, and they give a lecture, they give a talk, and they write notes on the board, and the students copy the notes, and then you take a test on the information from the notes in the textbook, and And it's all very normal, it's all very boring, and therefore, when the class ends, you quickly forget most of the information, most of what you learned.

So, the point of today's podcast is this. Make your learning more interesting, more strange, more entertaining, and more fun. Get more emotion into every part of your English learning.

And find more interesting material. Listen to more interesting things. Read more interesting things. It's better to read a strange, interesting storybook...

than to read a boring textbook. You will remember and learn more from the storybook than you will from the textbook because it's strange, because it's interesting.

You can also find stories and audios about topics that are very, very interesting to you, your hobbies, your interests. So whatever you do, go out there and find more English material that's interesting, strange, fun, and emotional.

And find English teachers who are interesting, strange, fun, and emotional. Or English conversation partners. If you're looking for a conversation partner online or in your town.

Don't pick somebody who's just normal and boring because you won't remember what you learned from them. You won't remember your conversations with them. Pick someone who's different, energetic, strange, interesting, creative, fun to you.

Those are the best kinds of conversation partners. And of course, I would love for you to get our lessons, join our VIP program, get our lessons every month. Each month you get mini stories, which are different and interesting and funny and strange. And also you get audios about very interesting topics.

So do what you need to do. And to learn more about Effortless English, go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Again, go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com. I will see you there.

Bye-bye.